


Supplication

by the_roots_that_clutch



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Age Difference, Gen, M/M, Mild Language, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, References to Sex, References to Torture, Unhealthy Relationships, john has self worth issues like woah, mild character bashing through john's pov, panic/anxiety attacks, religious symbalism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-18
Updated: 2015-02-18
Packaged: 2018-03-13 13:45:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3383837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_roots_that_clutch/pseuds/the_roots_that_clutch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Faith is blind and hungry and grasping.  Faith is fear masked as hope.  Faith is a lie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Supplication

**Author's Note:**

> The relationship between these two interested me, because it seems like they are forming some sort of bond on the show, but that it could so easily be this unhealthy thing, given Jaha floated John's father, and I think Jaha could possibly see John as some sort of surrogate for Wells, which is unhealthy. So of course I decided to make it even more unhealthy and add sex into it. It's really more of a character study on John, whose voice I'm not sure I captured perfectly. He does reference his time with the grounders, though nothing explicit, so warnings for that.

_This is the dead land_

_This is cactus land_

_Here the stone images_

_Are raised, here they receive_

_The supplication of a dead man's hand_

_Under the twinkle of a fading star_

Supplication

It’s a fucked up thing they have going.

John gets that, knows he’s crazy for going along with this. Jaha calls it faith, his blind hope for something better, someplace better. John’s calls it what it is, desperation.

He’s here because he has nowhere else to be. He’s intimately acquainted with the idea of ‘anywhere but here.’ In the end, it doesn’t matter where Jaha leads him. As long as it’s somewhere else.

Jaha knows that, has to, deep down even if he won’t admit it. So John can’t understand why he keeps turning to him, leaning on him as if somehow they are in this together, as if John shares something with him. It might be nice, to be treated like what he thinks matters, if it was about him. But it isn’t. John is the last connection Thelonius has to his son; being close to him has nothing to do with him.

John is not Wells, and Jaha is not his father. Jaha killed his father. And yet, here he is, blindly following him to what will likely be his death.

It’s fucked up is what it is. Beyond fucked. It’s _insane_. A bad idea all the way around. Self-preservation is something John’s always been very good at, and that voice in the back of his head that tells him to _run, fight, survive_ is screaming that he should go. Leave while he still has the chance, cut his losses and run far, far away.

But when he has the chance to turn back, to run away, he doesn’t. He stays.

And that’s probably the most fucked up thing of all.

///

The grounders have these things called seconds. Pathetic losers who trail after older warriors like puppies begging for scraps. Except it’s more than that, they aren’t just servants or students, there’s something more to it. The grounders pick seconds because they see some sort of potential in them. Or whatever it is that grounders look for. They see _something_ there, so they pick them. Not that they see them as equals or anything—figures that there’s a pecking order even among savages—but they think they could be.

John feels like Jaha’s made him his second sometimes. He’s trying to teach him something, trying to reach across the insurmountable distance between him and grow something new. Thelonious is delusional, a murderer who has turned in guilt for faith, an idealist and an optimist only because he lacked the capacity to imagine anything worse, so things could only get better. He’s a man with nothing to lose, and John can relate. He lost everything a long time ago.

So when Jaha rests his hand on his shoulder, turns to him and asks his opinion, looks at him like he’s worth something, like he _matters_ it pisses him off. It confuses him and that makes him angry. The anger already sits so close under the surface, like a black cancer under his skin, poisoning his thoughts. Sometimes it boils to the surface and takes over, gets him in trouble. He’s an angry guy; he doesn’t need more to be pissed off over.

But it makes him feel something else too, something dangerous and addictive. John isn’t quite sure what it is, because he’s never felt it before. He remembers feeling something close to it with his father, his mother, something similar when he was Bellamy’s attack dog.

(He doesn’t like thinking of Bellamy; Bellamy was supposed to be his friend but he turned on him the moment it was convenient. He tries to act like he’s better, like he hasn’t got just as much blood on his hands. Bellamy understood once what it meant to survive, that morality was useless in the face of mortality, that to get by you did what you had to. But that was before Clarke, before he had his head shoved so far up her ass he couldn’t breathe without smelling her bullshit.)

John wants to ask _why_ , why Jaha asked him to come, why he wants him with him. He’s too much of a coward to get the words out. He’s too afraid of the answer.

///

Blindly following a star to an unclear destination reminds John of a story he heard back in school when they were studying Earth. It was from some old Earth religion, people crossing deserts to reach some savior, except he got killed in the end and all they got was some shoddy promise of a better place after they died.

That’s always the way it is with religion; the rewards don’t come until you don’t need them, it’s all about the _after_ instead of the _now_. What good is promise of a better place, if you have to die to get there? Where’s the salvation when you _need_ it? It’s why John doesn’t believe in anything; if there’s some higher power, it’s pretty shitty.

John bets Jaha believes in a higher power, some cosmic fucker who’s pulling all the strings. He’s a man of faith, where John is more a ‘seeing is believing’ kind of guy. He takes things with a grain of salt, has been disappointed too many times to dare have faith in anything. There’s too much doubt for faith, and just enough room left for a small shred of battered hope.

“What if you’re wrong?” he says to Jaha, watching as the flames of the fire flicker shadows across his face. The lines around his eyes seem deeper than they were before. Maybe his faith is not so absolute. Faith has a funny way of abandoning people when their stomachs are empty and their feet are sore.

“Then I’m wrong.” says Thelonious, as if it were that simple.

John snorts, a sneer curling on his face as he pokes viciously at the fire with a stick. Sparks fly upwards, hotly kiss his skin. He hisses and pulls back, swears. Jaha doesn’t say anything, calmly takes his hand, runs soothing fingers over stinging skin. It makes John want to hiss as well, it isn’t pain but it’s no less welcome.

Jaha drops his hand. “Do you believe I’m wrong, John?”

It’s not a question he wants to consider. He’s tried very hard not to consider it. If Jaha is wrong then he’s dead, they all are. John’s almost surprised to find he cares. He doesn’t want these people, his people, to die. Not even Jaha, not really. He isn’t sure when that happened.

John swallows thickly and prods the fire again. More sparks rain down on them, but this time John doesn’t flinch. “I don’t know.”

Jaha looks at him in that eerie way he has, like he can see past the surface to what’s underneath, down to the things that twist and bite. “Yes, you do.”

John doesn’t meet his gaze, stares at the flames dance. Faith, he thinks, is like fire, it can keep you warm or it can burn you to ash. “No,” he says after a long pause, “I don’t think you’re wrong.”

///

Sometimes John has nightmares. He dreams of his time with the grounders, remembers what they did to him and wakes up drenched in a cold sweat, his heart racing and his eyes wet. Usually he wakes up before the noise can start, the moans of distress or pleas to stop. It goes back to self-preservation.

Tonight that doesn’t happen.

He’s crying out in his sleep, when a hand shakes his shoulder. He hurts, down to his bones and the taste of blood is in his mouth and the ringing in his years is so loud it drowns out everything else, except that muffled sound far away. “John, John, wake up. _John_.”

A hand touches his face and he shoots up, heart hammering in his chest, lungs on fire and he can’t breathe, he can’t breathe, he can’t _breathe_.

“John, it’s alright, you’re alright.” Hands cup his face, warm and secure. “John, look at me, focus on my voice. You’re safe. I’ve got you; you’re okay.”

The fog clears away and John’s breaths slow down, become less erratic. He slumps forward and his forehead presses against Jaha’s. He leaves it there more from exhaustion than need for comfort, but Jaha’s hand is supporting his cheek and his other strokes his hair, murmuring soothing nothings like a parent comforting a child. John shoves him off.

Jaha doesn’t try to stop him when he storms off, but John can feel him following behind him, silent and calm. Of course Jaha follows him, because he’s always there. Even when he’s not, John can feel his presence like an itch on the back of his neck, an ever constant force pressing against him. John keeps walking, long angry strides until his rage driven burst of energy depletes. He can feel Jaha behind him at a careful distance. “You shouldn’t wander off alone.”

His voice is so mild, so _collected_ and John feels like there’s a fissure inside him, ready to blow any second and he just _snaps_. “I’m not your son!” He whirls around and shouts, too far away for the others in their group to hear, too angry to care if they do.

Jaha startles slightly before his face smoothes over. “I know.”

The rage scratches beneath his skin, hot and itching. “Why do you want me here?”

“Why do you want to be here?” Jaha returns, still so calm that it makes John want to lash out, to hit him, to make him bleed, anything to break that perfect composure.

John lunges at him and Jaha flinches like he’s going to get punched. John kisses him instead.

Jaha stills, and John clutches his shirt, hands twisted tight, mouth rough and demanding. Jaha unfreezes, brings a hand to cradle the back of John’s head, tilts his head and kisses John back, coaxes him into something slower, softer. He pulls back first and John instinctively tries to follow his mouth. “John,” Jaha says, voice a low warning. John opens his eyes to see Jaha studying his face and when their eyes meet he refuses to look away. It feels too much like losing. “Do you want this?”

“Do you?” John fires back. If Jaha can use the bullshit answering question with a question to avoid answering so can he.

“I’m old enough to be your father.”

John shrugs, answers nastily, “Maybe I have daddy issues. I lost my father at a young age.”

Jaha winces a little at the words. “You’re barely more than a child.”

“I’m old enough. Just had a birthday. Too busy being tortured by grounders to celebrate.”

That causes a more visible reaction, but it doesn’t last long. Jaha studies him closely and repeats his question, “Do you want this?”

There’s a pressure building inside John, threatening to explode and he needs a release. Needs something to make his mind go blissfully numb, a fight, a fuck, a bottle of whiskey, _something_. “Yeah, I want it.”

Shouldn’t, but he does. Shouldn’t, but he will. Story of his life.

Jaha obliges him. Kisses him, caresses him until he’s a shivering, panting mess. John’s only done this a few times—being locked up doesn’t permit a very active sex life—and the times he remembers were rushed and frantic, sloppy and without finesse. Jaha’s obviously more experienced; he’s gentle and unhurried, almost reverent. He touches John like he’s something precious, with a tenderness and care that nearly hurts. And it’s been so long since John’s been touched in a way that wasn’t meant to hurt, and Jaha doesn’t try to take anything back from him, only gives. It’s over embarrassingly quickly, but Jaha doesn’t comment on it, only tells him they should get back before someone notices they’re gone.

There are no more nightmares the rest of the night.

///

They should be dead. They should all be dead. It’s been days since they had something to eat, to drink and John’s throat feels raw and abused, like glass has scraped the inside. (He knows how that feels, knows how too many things he shouldn’t feel, knows there are infinite ways to hurt someone, to be hurt.)

He hasn’t felt Jaha’s eyes on him as much. Not since that night. It worries at the edge of his thoughts, beneath the dull pounding of thirst and the sharp hunger. He starts to think that maybe it was out of pity, tossing the dog a bone. John doesn’t want anyone’s fucking pity. Pity never helped him before and he doesn’t want it now. Jaha can take his pity and shove it.

But he needs to know. Needs to know if that was all it was. Needs to know if all of this has only been about feeling sorry for him. (It has to be, because Jaha didn’t ask for anything back, didn’t try to take anything from John and if he wanted him he would have, no one gives anything for free, they all want something.)

He corners Jaha when the group has stopped to rest, Jaha broken away from the others for a quiet moment alone. “You’ve been avoiding me.”

It’s an accusation, thrown at him like a weapon, all sharp edges and blunt anger. Jaha doesn’t turn around to look at him. “I’ve been busy.”

“Busy avoiding me.” It sounds childish to his own ears, petty and petulant.

“I thought you might like some space.”

Oh. John hadn’t considered that. Not that he’s going to give any ground. Jaha’s been ignoring him and you don’t just ignore a guy after what they did. “You mean you would like it.”

Jaha turns to look at him, arms crossed over his chest. He’s silent for a long moment, eyes scrutinizing. John tries not to squirm under his gaze. “You’re right; I haven’t been paying you proper attention. How can I fix it?”

More pity; the last thing he needs. “I don’t need you to feel sorry for me.”

“Is that what you think?” Jaha’s voice softens, he takes a step closer. “John, I’ve been avoiding you because I was wrong.” Another step closer. “I can’t take advantage of you. Even if I want to.” Hands come to grip his forearms and eyes meet his. “Do you understand?”

John thinks he does. “I’m not a kid; you aren’t taking advantage--”

Jaha lets out a small, bitter laugh. “Aren’t I?”

John kicks his toe into the sand, looks at his feet. “Is that why you didn’t ask me to…” He lets the question drift off, because he doesn’t know exactly what Jaha would ask him to do. He doesn’t have much experience with this sort of thing. It makes him feel like the kid Jaha thinks he is, makes his cheeks burn red. He kicks at the sand a little harder.

“Yes.” Jaha says simply, honestly.

John spits out the question before he can lose the nerve, “Did you want to?” _(Did you want me?)_ “Ask me?”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” John says.

///

The thing about the desert is that it’s hot in the day and freezing at night. People have taken to sleeping in pairs or small groups, huddled together for warmth. So it’s not exactly uncommon to see someone get up in the night and move over to another’s bedding. It’s cold and people are warm. Body heat and etc.

The guy on watch duty doesn’t even glance his way when he lifts Jaha’s blanket and climbs on top of him.

“John, what are you doing?” Jaha asks, eyes bleary and voice rough with sleep.

“I’m cold. Warm me up?” His voice drips with sarcasm, with challenge.

Jaha settles back into the ground more comfortably, relaxed again now he realizes there’s no threat present. “That line work with the girls your age?”

(John doesn’t like girls his age. All the ones he know left him to die. Monroe was alright, and he kinda liked Raven. At least he did once, but that might have just been an effect of nearly dying together. It didn’t last long, not after she tried to have him take the fall for Finn. The bitch.)

“I’m not a kid.” He has to prove that. He hasn’t been a kid in a long time. Not since they landed on Earth. Not since he took a life. Children are innocent; he lost any remaining part of his innocence when the grounders took him. They carved it out of him, piece by piece.

Jaha hums a non-answer. His eyes drift closed, like he’s slipping back into sleep. John wiggles against him. “Come on, I know you want it. I can feel it against my leg.” His frustration is clear in his voice and Jaha’s lips quirk up in amusement. The bastard. “Thelonious,” John doesn’t often use his first name, but it seems appropriate given the circumstances. It’s ignored, so he does something that stings at his pride a little, something that’s playing dirty. “Thelonious, _please_.”

It works. Jaha flips them over, settles between John’s thighs, mouths at his neck. “If you change your mind--”

“Yeah, yeah, get on with it.”

///

He’s sore the next day and stiff in the legs and walking feels like hell. Thelonious had warned him he would ache after, but John hadn’t listened, been too lust drunk to care. He’s tired and hungry and thirsty and sore and he’d kill for a goddamn sip of water.

It starts to rain. People shriek and gather whatever’s handy to collect it and after the shower is over they wring the water out of their clothes into their bottles. It’s rancid and the color of piss, but it’s the best thing John’s ever drank.

“Faith, John.” Thelonious says.

“It’s just rain.”

“Rain when we’re out of water, when we needed it most.” Thelonious claps a hand on his shoulder. “It’s a sign, John.”

There’s a fire in his eyes, and John remembers that fire can warm, but it can also burn. He hopes Jaha’s doesn’t burn them all.

///

John has doubts. Jaha doesn’t. It makes it easy to justify going to him, to have someone chase away the fear for a few minutes. He just needs a distraction sometimes, something to help him not to think.

(He can’t be left with his thoughts too long; it’s too loud inside his head. Thinking means remembering and remembering means pain and terror and he can’t think about it, can’t think about it, _don’t think don’t think don’t think_.)

Jaha helps make it quiet. It’s wrong; but it doesn’t stop him. Thelonious touches him like he’s something sacred, worships him with gentle hands and whispered praise, takes him apart and makes him shatter. And it doesn’t matter if John uses nails that scratch, teeth that bite, doesn’t matter if he leaves marks, or grips too tightly, too hard, too much. It doesn’t matter because Thelonious never bites back, never _hurts_.

(John can’t remember the last time he was touched with such care. There’s some half formed memories of his mother, his father, of a hand of his forehead, fingers brushing back his hair, a hand clasped in his. But those thoughts are few and far away. The truth is that he can hardly remember the sound of his father’s voice, the tilt of his mother’s smile. Every day they slip a little further away, farther and farther from reach and it isn’t _fair_.)

“What happens when we get there?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” says Thelonious.

“What if it isn’t what we think?” (He doesn’t know when ‘what you think’ became ‘what we think’ but that doesn’t matter. He has to believe Jaha is right because if he isn’t then it’s all for nothing.)

“It is.” Jaha answers.

“How do you know?”

“I just know.”

Thelonious’s hand wraps around his and John feels fire.

///

(When John was a child, he had horrible nightmares. He’d wake screaming and crying, his mother at his side. She’d wrap an arm around him and crawl under his covers, tell him she’d watch over him until he fell back asleep. There were never any nightmares when she was beside him.)

He sleeps besides Jaha because it’s easier; it doesn’t _mean_ anything. It’s just nice having someone to wake him before the nightmares get too bad, nice to have someone to tell him it’ll be okay.

“Tell me about the city of light.”

“It’s a place where everyone is accepted.”

(John’s never been accepted anywhere, his people put him in prison, then sent him to Earth to die, then his friends tried to kill him and sent him to die. They only people who have ever gave a shit are dead. He thought once maybe Finn could be a friend, he looked at him like a person, not a monster, not a charity case, then the grounders got him too and Clarke _killed_ him. But no one cares that some stuck up princess is a murderer, she gets to wash the blood of her hands, but he never can.)

“What if they don’t want us there?”

Thelonious doesn’t answer for a moment. “That won’t happen.”

“Yeah, how do you know?”

“I have faith.”

(Faith isn’t about belief, it’s about fear. Faith is needing so desperately you’re afraid to consider not getting. Faith is blind and hungry and grasping. Faith is fear masked as hope. Faith is a lie. John had faith in his father, faith he would save him.)

“Why?”

Jaha is serene. “Faith doesn’t require proof.”

“I do.”

“Trust me, John.”

(John trusted his father to return to him, trusted his mother to take care of him, trusted Bellamy to lead them, trusted Finn to have his back. Trust has got him nowhere. Trust, like faith, is a lie.)

“What other choice do I have?”

///

There’s an old story from Earth, about people who follow a star to find a baby who will be their savior.

(John’s never liked babies or believed in saviors. People save themselves. But he likes stories, likes that they can have happy endings.)

In this story, the savior grows up and has followers, and the most beloved is a man named John, the youngest of his apostles.

(John’s never been most beloved by anyone, never will be. Murderers aren’t beloved. But he’s a follower isn’t he? He followed Bellamy when they landed, followed orders like a good little soldier when Kane and Clarke’s mom took over, followed Jaha out here to chase something he doesn’t even believe in. Maybe following is all he’s made for.)

The apostle John outlives all the other followers, dying of old age while the others are made martyrs for their faith. Jaha tells him the story, tells John that if any of them live to old age, it’ll be him. He tells him he’s a survivor, like the John from the story.

(John would never die for faith. He doesn’t have anything he believes in enough to die for.)

Jaha tells him that in the same book, there’s a story about a man who leads his people through a desert for forty years trying to find the land of milk and honey. Forty years, searching for a better place. Forty years, until they found something better. John tells him he isn’t waiting around forty years, he’ll be an old man, and Jaha will be dead.

“If something happens to me, you have to lead our people to the city of light.”

(There’s more than one John in that book, and all of them are good men, men of faith. John isn’t a good man; he doesn’t have faith. He isn’t made to lead. His whole life he’s only known how to follow, how to stay out of the way.)

“Nothing’s going to happen to you.” The thought frightens him, more than it should. He needs Thelonious around, needs someone in this place, someone who looks at him and sees him as more than the sum of the things he’s done.

“If it does.” Jaha says.

“I can’t.”

“Yes, you can.” Jaha looks at him with eyes that burn, that fire brighter than ever.

“How do know?”

Jaha smiles, looks at him like he’s special, worthy, _beloved_. “I have faith in you.”

**Author's Note:**

> First time writing for this fandom and first time writing a pairing, so any thoughts/advice/concrit is appreciated.


End file.
